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Comment by epsteingpt | Hacker News Reader

I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents (3 yen - source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/japanese-snack-company-apolog...)

The country for better or worse seems to be frozen in time - salaries have not caught up with the heady levels of SV (or even Europe) but neither have rents or prices for common goods.

This is not a judgment either way - but it does make Japanese exports a significantly more lucrative business - if only they could figure out how to sell more of their stuff abroad!

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> In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents

No, there really isn't. You're looking at one company that "apologized" as a marketing play but outside of that prices have been increasing with no fanfare for years now. The annual inflation rate has been 2-3% for the past 4 years. It's a lot less interesting to write a news article about that though.

https://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/cpi/158c.html

Yeah, and the price of rice has increased way more than that. Heat is making me too lazy to look it up so I wonder if it's gotten better in the past year. But Japanese people are very used to price increases.

Granted, accommodation is not one of them. Especially if you compare Tokyo to London, Paris or even Geneva.

Have you checked Tokyo hotel prices lately? Thanks to the travel boom they're through the roof as well: the business hotel that was Y10,000 before COVID is now twice that, and Western branded hotels that were Y30,000 or so are now Y100,000+.

For the 98% of people on here that have no idea of the Yen conversion rates, we are talking about 60 usd to 184-600 usd, or 55 euro to 162-550 euro

Jinx personal jinx no jinxback.

Well, yes and no, because that 10000 yen room was US$100 back then, not $60.

So you're saying we understand it even less than todays rates lol. But your comment is definitely understood, it's crazy how things (particularly prices!) changed pre and post covid.

For western reference, ¥100,000+ is $615+, or €540+.

Not cheap. I managed to find a room in SF for like $250 when I was looking, though you’d have to reserve it a week in advance. Is Tokyo really that expensive now?

You can still get a shoebox-sized business hotel for less, but if you want a room with enough space to open your suitcase, yes.

That's a fair point. I reserved a business hotel in Tokyo for ¥113900 for 7 days during off-season. After conversion, it's still reasonable since you wouldn't find something with the same quality and convenience in the cities I mentioned.

But what I meant was accommodation for residents and not hotels. I would much rather have to find a flat and live in Tokyo rather than any other big city in the world.

> or even Geneva

Oh yes the budget option for thrifty vacationers

I was not talking about hotels but about apartments and houses (i.e. for local people).

I think this is a bit disingenuous. Japan spent nearly all of the last 30 years needling deflation. If you take a look at the highest grossing movies of all time in Japan with and without adjusting for inflation, it barely changes. Do that for the US and it's an entirely different list.

Normal inflation for the last 4 years is basically still nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I watch one of those “apartments for rent in Japan” channels and I’m consistently shocked how inexpensive apartments are in lower tier cities / not Tokyo. Like a studio in an inconvenient part of Fukuoka for $200-250 a month.

I guess the salaries are lower, but it’s hard to imagine such cheap rent in the equivalent American city.

It's hard to compare to the US as a big part of this is the very weak yen.

I spent a couple years traveling the world and punctuated my travels with a 2 week stop in Japan (Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto) in May '24. I was not prepared for how inexpensive everything was... much less than several eastern European cities I had just come from, more on par with places like Mexico City.

It was still very affordable in 2009 - 2014 when the yen was not weak.

I mean... You are looking at a place that is about 250 square feet? There isn't an appetite for offering units that small in the US.

I don’t agree at all — plenty of college students, 20-30s somethings would love a space like this in NYC, SF, etc. at a lower price point than what’s currently available.

The limits seem to be from legal restrictions on minimum apartment size, not market demand.

I think so too. I'm an early 30s that would love to pay a fraction of the current market rates for a Tokyo-sized unit in SF.

When I was younger, this was only doable in larger US cities if you had roommates. And was quite common in that scenario.

Doesn't change that it would be nice to have such offerings without having to navigate all of the extra stuff that comes from having roommates.

Apologies, on that I agree. What we don't seem to have, is a willingness to build and offer these places.

That is, I was specifically saying there is a lack of appetite to offer these. Not that there is lack of appetite to buy/rent them.

The building codes in most jurisdictions wouldn't even allow such a thing, whether there would be demand for it or not. But the lengths people are willing to go for small apartments in top tier cities (NYC, especially) show that there is be demand in the right situations. Of course, the whole point of living in Manhattan is to not spend time at home.

But there are interesting experiments going on. Where I live (Toronto) has had a huge build-out of small ~4-500sqf bachelors that were hoovered up by flippers and mom-n-pop landlords. At the peak of the boom, they were selling for ridiculous prices ($800K+) and the poor build quality of everything from elevators (of which there often weren't enough, resulting in lineups and long waits) to water pipes that burst meant that savvy prospective owners stay clear.

There's a correction happening, but people don't want to unload their "investments" at below what they cost and since mortgages are recourse people can't just walk away.

In theory there should be demand for these units from the young, corporate owners, 2nd homes in the city, etc. But the prices have just not come down enough to make any of those worthwhile.

Right, I should have been clear that my assertion was not that there is lack of demand. My assertion is we don't build and offer this style. Outside of school dormitories. And even then, there is still a preference for bigger.

Would love to see more on the correction you are referencing. So much of the discourse I see focusing on "starter homes." Which, these are not that.

There's a relatively expansive article here: https://financialpost.com/feature/toronto-condo-correction-f...

Also: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqxq32zzq8eo

Thanks! And yeah, I knew a few markets were tanking. I was hoping there was evidence that people were starting to offer SRO style places.

Alas, I think there is such a heavy anti-landlord attitude around that nobody wants to be said landlord. Worse, towns don't like having apartment complexes. Worse still, we don't do anything to incentivize moving back to these neighborhoods for the people that do move away to work.

In BC, the government bought all the unsold, unfit units to prop up the housing market. Your tax dollars at work!

Think I've heard anecdotes about Tokyo being pretty affordable as well. Quick search shows less than 1/3 of income typically spent on housing, which is much better than major US cities.

Yep. Counterintuitively, housing in Japan depreciates unlike most of the world

Wonder how it is like in other countries with shrinking populations. Say, Korea.

Intuitively, it would make sense for housing prices to decrease when the demand decreases, supply being equal (It's not like housing deteriorates significantly in the short term).

Demand for the big cities is still increasing pretty much everywhere, even if some countries are seeing net decrease in demand on the whole. Also remember that supply deteriorates. The number of "ready to move into" homes can decrease over time without maintenance and rebuilds.

Not sure about Korea, but Japan's case is more interesting than simply adjusting for population: the government strongly incentivizes new buildings every few decades. There is also a culture of viewing housing as a consumable, which is the part that sticks out to me the most.

yeah there is an expectation that you're either building a shrine type building (in that it's gonna be built to last and venerated) that will be there for 300 years, or else you're gonna replace it in <30.

that also leads to a lot of experimentation in architecture, since this building ain't gonna last so get weird. downside is it leads to a prefab corner cutting approach.

my brother lived in japan for a while and he loved it, both the long-standing rural places that were legit old school, but also when he was in the city and sublet some hypermodern, querky places on the cheap.

Japan is a bit of an outlier because of earthquake regulations.

There is a history of substantially updating building regulations every time a new record is set for largest earthquake in the modern era; and so if you are buying historical, you are buying a less safe property that could kill you.

The last major earthquake updates to the code were in 2000, so there isn’t a lot of historical housing stock without this confounding factor.

Seems like this should be a net cost adder. Yet even new builds are quite affordable.

Japan has stigma towards used houses.

Housing built with pine 2x4s really _should_ depreciate especially in termite/earthquake regions like CA, but doesn't seem like that'll ever happen.

It does depreciate, usually. It's the land underneath that appreciates in value.

Occasionally if you get unusual spikes in building materials and labour costs then the house itself can appreciate in value because it costs more to replace it, but that's rare enough.

Most land is leased rather than owned - which means it depreciates over time. Imo it's a sensible system 70-100 year old buildings often have issues like Aluminum wiring, lead pipes, or asbestos, and can be in generally such a sorry state that renovating them costs more.

Also building a house or apt building that can stand for 100 years is very different from one that stands forever, for example steel beams can be used as foundation instead of having to pour concrete

Tokyo is massive, you can literally be living rural and still be in Tokyo. Could be an hour or more commute till you get into the metro area.

Not all of Tokyo is nice either. They also probably won’t rent to “outsiders” without giving any explanation so…

https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3...

> Here is a startling fact: in 2014 there were 142,417 housing starts in the city of Tokyo (population 13.3m, no empty land), more than the 83,657 housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).

Houses in Europe are made to last 200 years. I know traditional rural Japan houses get used for 30-40 years and torn down. So can’t just go on housing starts, would need to go on delta of total units. As houses get torn down, replacing is expanding.

Part of that is that Japan actually builds housing, while literally every major US metro area has a massive self-inflicted shortage of housing (https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives...).

> I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

Just checked online.

8pc family meal of spicy white meat with large mash potatoes and gravy, one sweet tea, one purple lemonade, one chilled premium mango lemonade

$41.05

@ 1501 NW 20th St, Miami, FL 33142

Bring-your-own-liquids = $30.38

Either ordering at the counter is criminally expensive, or you were listening to someone who wanted to spend $68 at Popeye's in Florida so they could complain about spending $68 at Popeye's in Florida.

That 8pc 'family meal' feeds 2 people. The sweet teas don't count as food - they may as well be dumped down the sink.

Feeding a family of four would need 2 of those 8 piece meals, so $60.

Looking at the Popeyes menu, the 8pc family meal is $32.99 and feeds 3-4 people (3218-3738 calories)

If that’s not enough, you order the larger portion, not double your quantity.

12pc family meal: $42.99 for 4-6 people (4992-6032 calories)

16pc family meal: $52.99 for 6-8 people (6766-8326 calories)

Have you folks seen a Popeyes family meal? They’re not tiny… eating that many calories in one sitting is not the best idea.

Half those calories are from the drinks. Like I said, pour it down the drain, it just pumps the numbers.

Their family meals don’t include drinks.

We Americans are used to overeating. In Asia 1 piece of chicken and a small side (kids size) is enough for 1 person.

My partner and I spent ~$70 CAD at popeyes the other day for two adults. I got a sandwich + fries + slaw, they got tenders, we both got fountain drinks.

that's about $50 USD.

The chicken sandwich large combo at Popeyes consists of the sandwich, 2 sides (fries, slaw), and a fountain drink — $14.99.

The 5pc chicken tenders regular combo (tenders, fries, biscuit, fountain drink) is $15.99.

Where did the other ~$20 USD come from?

I don't know how you're paying that much.

Sandwich + Tenders + 2 Cole slaws + 2 bottled 500ml drink + one fries, as combos here in western Canada total up to $50 CAD for me on DoorDash...

why is the lemonade purple

grape drank + lemonade

As a kid, I always wondered why prices HAVE to keep going up. Seemed like a vicious cycle.

It's a vicious cycle if we get in an "inflationary spiral", but most of the time a small inflation is pretty healthy.

A capitalist society needs inflation in order to produce a desirable outcome. It is a driver of consumption, as opposed to people and organizations hoarding their money in a deflationary environment, as well as investments, because inflation leads to the devaluation of loans over time.

Population growth is ending globally, so I suppose the strategy is to issue debt for clean tech, affordable housing, and similar at the lowest yield for the longest duration you can and let those loans devalue over time as the population declines. China is the closest model I can put forth in this regard: their property sector is imploding for investors, but housing is affordable, for example.

China Home Prices Fall at Faster Pace in Setback to Revival - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/china-hom... - June 15th, 2026

China Housing Demand to Stay at 75% Below Peak, Goldman Says - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-17/china-hou... | https://archive.today/LkbCF - June 16th, 2025

This is the gospel that is taught. It seems to help people tolerate the fruits of their labor being quietly separated from them over time. Just another tax, except the people have even less of a say in this one.

Can you provide counter arguments to mine, though? It does not reduce wealth if dealt with correctly as an individual. It is meant to incentivize investments rather than hoarding, i.e., doing nothing with your money, as I explained.

I hear this argument all the time, but I've always found it lacking connection with the human behaviour I observe as someone growing up low-middle class, now middle-upper class.

It completely misses the mark on human behaviour of those living in scarcity. Inflation forces them to save whatever they can in the most stable and liquid medium (cash). As a result it creates a very strong force pushing low income individuals further down, it takes a lot of hard work and luck to get out.

Those with enough wealth don't need the same liquidity or stability, they have the luxury to invest and see their wealth grow and outpace inflation. As a result of this security they are more willing to spend on products and services.

Inflation causes scarcity for the poor and security for the wealthy.

The lower inflation is the less scarcity for the poor, and they will be more willing to spend and invest. Even in a environment with 0 inflation the wealthy still have incentive not to hoard cash. The incencentive to invest was never about the devaluation of cash, but rather the outpacing return of value that investment brings. Theoretically that still exists even in a deflationary environment, though I do suspect high enough deflation would have drastic negative impacts on the market to the point where returns are too low to justify the risk.

In the end it's really just greed. Companies always want to charge as much as they can get away with. They are constantly testing price increases to see how high they can get their prices before they start losing enough customers that it hurts their profits.

Older customers who have an idea in their mind of how much something is worth based on how much they've previously paid may eventually feel cheated and stop buying, but there's always a new generation of customers who never knew any better. There are things they can do to offset the backlash like they might offer a sale at the same time as they increase prices to give customers time to get used to the new sticker price. They keep the price the same and try to hide the fact that they're giving customers less product.

it's pretty shortsighted though because it makes our money increasingly worthless and eventually we'll end up like Zimbabwe and a loaf of bread will cost us $100.

Do you ask for/expect a raise every year? Even if your job responsibilities and workload doesn't change?

It's easy to boil it down and say greed or capitalism but I don't think it is a very reasoned position.

>Prices for goods in Europe in the sixteenth century rose to about four times the level that had prevailed during the preceding three centuries, increasing poverty levels but also raising the profit potential for those who were in a position to exploit an economy that was suddenly based primarily upon money and credit rather than labor and trade. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/worldwide-in...

Not sure if they were fully capitalistic by then but that was a long time ago.

I also know that Japan has had inflation for a long time, reading history about coins and looking up the worth of a mon that would be 10000 to 1 yen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_cash_coins_by...

IMHO, inflation is driven by both greed (not just companies, everyone wants their retirement portfolio to go up) and increased money supply. The USA has a large amount of deficit spending, this is money that we just magic into existence. We have used it recently to try and manage crisis like 2008 GFC and COVID but I don't think that it is a coincidence that after those two events the costs of everything went up.

Worldwide the prevailing economic theory is that deflation is bad, I am not sure but unless we are willing to allow for some deflation you will only every have inflation.

> Do you ask for/expect a raise every year? Even if your job responsibilities and workload doesn't change?

Cost of living requires that. Also, even when my job responsibilities and workload don't change, my skills do. Someone who has gained valuable skill and experience should be better compensated than someone showing up for their first day of work.

> In the end it's really just greed. Companies always want to charge as much as they can get away with.

Is it also greed when consumers want to pay as little as possible? (In some ways, of course it is, but at some point, the loaded term greed isn’t particularly helpful towards understanding perfectly ordinary microeconomic behavior.)

> Is it also greed when consumers want to pay as little as possible?

Yeah, sometimes it is. People should be paid a fair amount for the resources, time and effort they put into something. Greed seems fitting when the motivation is just an endless repeating of "I want to give you less while taking more of your money for myself" although more often it's "for the company's shareholders".

Pushing for ever-increasing profit at all costs is what corporations do. Calling it anything but greed is just misrepresenting their nature.

> In the end it's really just greed.

Yeah, well their job is to get the best price for their product. Just as it is your job to get as much money as possible for your product, i.e. your talents and labors.

In a competitive economy with informed buyers this greed is what makes things cheap and high quality. Think about two grocery store owners in a small town. They've settled into an equilibria with each other to keep the status quo and not get greedy for a bigger share of the market by competing on price or quality. Then one day, seeing an opportunity, a new grocer moves in with fresher fruit, a wider variety of products and most importantly lower prices. All the customers go over to that grocery store and the old grocers have the choice to improve or die. From the point-of-view of the previous grocery store owners the new grocery store is "greedy", but it ends up benefiting everyone else.

> Companies always want to charge as much as they can get away with.

In any market where competition exists, companies compete against other companies for customers. Any company that doesn't (for whatever reason) maximize it's net income is likely to cease to exist at some point, or at the least is unlikely to grow. As a result, not being 'greedy' is usually not a viable strategy.

Describing simple self interest as 'greed' is inherently loaded and reductionist. Look at the natural world; pretty much all living organisms exhibit self-interested behaviors (at least at the group or species level, if not the individual level). Are all of those 'greedy' too? You could say yes and not be wrong, but in doing so you would dilute the meaning of the word 'greed'.

I thought the same, too. Generally some small amount of inflation is preferable to encourage spending, rather than deflation which discourages it.

If you know a $100 item will probably cost $102 later then you're more likely to buy it now. But if that item will cost $98 in a deflationary environment, then maybe you'll wait to buy it later. Wages also tend to fall in deflation, which makes it harder to pay back debt, so lending slows down - people won't buy houses or cars, etc. Businesses hold back on capital spending. The economy slows to a standstill: if no one is spending money, how can anyone make money?

I think its more important for investment. If you have $1mil in cash and know it's losing value every day you have an incentive to invest it in some long-term profitable way. Hire more employees, buy some more trucks for your fleet, renovate your store, do some R&D to improve your product, etc. If it's the opposite you don't feel any urgency because your $1mil is gaining value as it sits in the bank.

Velocity of Money is the term to look into. Governments also like it because as money circulates it generates tax revenue through sales tax/VAT.

This is true for investment-level amounts of money and larger percentages, but much less true for everyday purchases and small percentages. For buying a thing, a year of ownership is much more valuable than saving 2%. Look at the computer industry where waiting a year or two almost always gets you significantly better hardware but that doesn't stop people from buying new ones often.

And debts adjust their rates along with inflation/deflation so that effect ends up much smaller.

As for houses and cars, we desperately need to make the economy less focused on the value of houses and cars...

I'm not an economist, so maybe someone more knowledgeable can weigh in. But my understanding is that deflation is worse. If you can just stick $10k under your mattress and expect it to be worth 10% more in a year you have no incentive to invest. Businesses will just hold their cash, banks won't have money to loan out and the sort of investments that provide new jobs, goods and services are a risky high-effort bet compared to just saving.

Right, a steady low level of inflation is a driver for risk taking, which drives investment cycle, hiring, etc. This cascades thru economy from firm to firm, in a virtuous cycle of growth.

Zero inflation even as a target would be hard to hit, as it would imply some absolute perfect match of supply/demand for goods.

Deflation leads to the opposite behavior - hoard your resources, don't invest, don't lend, don't hire. This then cascades through economy in a downward spiral.

This (classic) argument is symmetric with respect to the value of money and quantity of goods. As in "if you know money will buy more in the future, it increases your incentive to sell now rather than wait for higher prices. And if you know prices will increase, you will hoard products." The argument doesn't favour either side.

One mechanism of inflation is that it effectively lowers wages (and other contracts) without negotiation. Asset prices are valued by markets and increase with inflation. It effectively transfers wealth from wage earners to capital owners.

Deflation would effectively increase wages instead, and require occasional renegotiations if productivity isn't keeping pace.

The problem is you can't really hoard products. Most products depreciate - it's a force of nature called entropy.

I think the argument from symmetry still holds, but it leads into a different conclusion. Since products (goods, physical assets) depreciate in value over time, money must too decrease in value. Hence you get inflation.

I believe that "natural rate of inflation" is driven by natural depreciation of goods and the free market mechanism that exchanges money and products as you describe.

Capital has multiple forms, I agree that physical goods generally depreciate over time. But there is also land, equity, and bonds and they all have their own market forces to deal with.

I'm hand-waving a lot of arguments and considerations with this statement, but from my perspective one advantage to 2-3% inflation is to incentivize owning capital that will outpace inflation. Land, equity, and bonds all have that potential.

Deflation may incentivize renegotiation of labor, but it also incentivizes hoarding of cash, which itself is not otherwise valuable. The value comes from it being passed around through the economy buying more assets. The more purchases -> the more money to be passed around -> the more opportunity to grow the economy. In a deflationary environment (at least in theory) this slows all of that down and decreases economic opportunity, which we generally don't want.

Sure 10% deflation would be a problem but so is 10% inflation.

What about 1 or 2% deflation? People would still need food, to replace or repair cars. People would still want and need to buy houses.

Inflation to my mind supposes that we have to have perpetual growth, which is something that is not realistic.

If we grow 3 times the amount of corn that we need this year, do we need to plan to grow 3.1 times next year? Or decrease the cost by 2%? If all the inputs stay the same, where do you get the gains from(assuming that the process is as efficient and automated as possible)?

I think that by printing money and expecting a 1~2% gain every year we just end up robbing ourselves. Companies play games by not giving raises right away, moving production to areas of LCOL or shrinking goods and services but our retirement portfolios go up. Then at the end of the day, you are on a fixed income and having to squeeze down on your consumption.

As I said to a sibling, it is easy to say companies are greedy but how many of us are buying a more expensive product because we know that they treat their employees well? Or do we look at something then try and find it cheaper on Amazon?

In the 90's there was a large amount of disdain for lower income people who were shopping at Wal-mart because they were buying cheap plastic goods from China. The reason they were is because companies were offshoring their jobs. They weren't buying from Wal-mart because they like the products, they were there because they were trying to keep the same lifestyle they had before they lost their higher paying jobs. Companies that did not offshore were driven out of business as their customer base collapsed. We cheated our future selves to keep our inflation targets.

My general impression with most discourse about the economy and statements like "Inflation to my mind supposes that we have to have perpetual growth" is that it looks at transactions within the economy as zero-sum. And that is a false assumption. It grows and shrinks for myriad of reasons that aren't directly related to monetary policy. The monetary policy is there to attempt to keep things stable and predicable, that is all.

> If we grow 3 times the amount of corn that we need this year, do we need to plan to grow 3.1 times next year? Or decrease the cost by 2%? If all the inputs stay the same, where do you get the gains from(assuming that the process is as efficient and automated as possible)?

I think I get what you're driving at, but let me ask this question. Do you believe the price of corn in 1976 reflects the same market forces as the price of corn in 2026? Not the inflationary number alone, but why that corn costs what it does today versus 50 years ago?

There are microeconomic changes for sure, different farming techniques and maybe a different way of buying and selling surplus corn. But the life of a farm hand has likely changed, the average background of them has likely changed, the ownership model of the farm may have changed. The downstream buyers of corn have likely changed from mostly canned good manufacturers to fresh produce providers. And the macroeconomic forces surrounding everything has absolutely changed.

I know that it is not a zero sum game and I get there are changes but I am not talking about 1976 to 2026. I am talking about 2025 to 2026. Or 2024 to 2025.

My premise was that input costs are stable and as automated as possible.

We still expect a 1 to 2% increase YOY.

I am not sure how ownership structure cange would give you growth or reduce cost.

Downstream buyers shouldn't affect it much either as we started out producing 3 times as much as is used. Unless someone suddenly found a use for all the excess.

Let me try again with a different example. Let's say that I run a bottle water company, I have an automated production line and I bottle as much water as I am allowed to pump. I sell all my product so there is no waste, this also means that I have all the customers that I need. I would still be expected to show growth YoY. How? Reduce material used in bottles? At some point the bottles are as thin as possible.

My point is, there is a lower limit to how much you can reduce things or how much you can grow. Not everything is there, in fact most things are probably not. But in our strive to grow or become more efficient we are also throwing away the ability to be resilient.

By moving to lean JIT we shutdown when a shipment is delayed. But we had less cash tied up in inventory!

Now we are applying those same practices to hospitals.

You can't fit 1~2% more chickens in the same cage, nor can you feed them less. So where does it come from? Is it worth the growth to spray the chicken down with bleach? Ship it to China to be slaughtered and back? Take the entrails, centerfuge them into pink slime?

What is the stopping point? That is my question.

Inflation makes servicing debt cheaper which incentivizes getting loans to build things.

It also leads to those who have little bargaining power to become underpaid as they cannot negotiate higher salaries as inflation squeezes them.

Inflation usually results in the central bank raising interest rates and thereby discouraging new loans for new projects, to try to prevent further inflation.

Maybe you could win if you’re leveraged using fixed-rate, long-term loans and you’re also confident that you can sell something at a higher price. But that’s a rather specific financial maneuver.

You win when you have a fixed rate 30 year mortgage

Maybe, if you also get a raise. But there might be better ways to get a raise than hoping it will happen due to inflation.

Inflation can exist because of a lot of things: natural loss of value, resource scarcity, monetary policy, greed, etc. And it's even harder to make sense of with fiat currency.

> Seemed like a vicious cycle.

The issue is inflation and deflation both tend to be positive feedback loops. Inflation can promote behavior that promotes inflation. Deflation can promote behavior that promotes deflation.

Note that I use "tend to" and "can promote". It's all based of off assumptions on how people value things and their behaviors, as is all economic models.

> why prices HAVE to keep going up

It really doesn't have to. We do so because economic models show that we should because of the way we behave. But, we also behave the way we do because of the economic systems that we've designed.

Prices have to keep going up if you want a system that promotes endless consumption and growth in consumption.

It also lets you have a "non-zero-sum" economy, where it appears everyone is making a "profit". But, in reality it isn't.

part of it has do do with scarcity and gas prices. Gas is used to produce and transport. If gas prices go up, prices go up just to pay for gas. Basic supply and demand. There are more humans, more cars so the demand is higher and gas is a finite resource. Alternative energies help but gas still heavily used.

A steady amount of inflation allows interest rates to be near zero or even negative in real terms without actually being negative in nominal terms. Negative (real) interest rates are sometimes a necessary policy tool (see: 2008...2021), but negative nominal rates are difficult to implement in practice in our current regime of privately-controlled money creation via bank lending.

There are other monetary schemes that allow for negative nominal rates (100% reserve-backed lending, a.k.a. The Chicago Plan, or the gold or silver standard, etc.), and in those one does not need steady inflation. There was basically no inflation for most of the 19th century, when most currencies were backed by gold or silver. That had other drawbacks: for example, a relative inability to control the money supply. An expanding money supply following the California gold rush helped fuel speculation during the railroad boom, and the inability to expand the money supply on demand exacerbated the ensuing panic of 1873. Governments at the time did not believe it was their job to dampen the impacts of the business cycle, however.

Interest rates create more money, inflation makes more money worth less.

Spain was pretty poor in the 1600's inspite of new world gold and silver, because inflation made everything more expensive as supply of goods wasn't really increased, but money supply was.

in 2020, USA increased money supply by 20% of their all time supply. So inflation has to devalue the currency by at least that much to keep it balanced. Which is why they are distracting us with all the shit they are doing. and they are ignoring the real issue.

Comparing prices between Japan and Europe or US is strongly skewed by the weak yen.

The fact that the JPY has lost a lot of value compared to the US dollar has nothing to do with how prices or salaries in Japan evolve.

Wouldn't that be covered by using PPP comparisons rather than just market currency conversion rates?

In Japan, inflation adjusted wages are down 2% over the last 20 years. In the same time frame in the US, they're up 20% and even for the bottom quartile, earnings are up 15%.

> I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

That’s $22 per person. Would like to see what they ordered. Not saying I don’t believe it but that’s pretty high. My family of 4 can eat chilfila for that and chikfila is kind of pricey for fast food where Popeyes is pretty much trash.

I don't think chick-fil-a is any less trash than Popeyes, personally, and the fried chicken itself is lower quality—too sweet and moist. The fries are dry and unseasoned. The biggest selling point is the lemonade.

Granted, I don't eat at either because better value fried chicken than both is not terribly difficult to find.

to be fair, it's all trash

No, that's about right in my (very limited) recent experience. It's _very_ easy to spend as much at a fast food restaurant these days as you would at a sit-down restaurant, especially if you don't do one of their combo meals, or add one or two extra items to your order

The crazy high prices and general unhealthiness aside, my main beef (if you'll pardon the pun) with fast food places is that more and more of them are taking orders via AI and/or requiring you to download and install their app to place an order.

Where is this happening? I think I would walk out and never come back if I walked into a fast food place and couldn't order until I downloaded an app.

You aren't required to but you will pay substantially more by not using the app and creating an account. They offer "exclusive" deals that usually amounts to roughly ~20% off menu price, while they raised all their base prices that much or more so you are subjected to data harvesting in order to pay the normal pirces.

I order fast food all the time and I'm always scoping for deals, rewards, etc. in the apps, and it's nowhere near 20% off on average.

What? Where are you going? What does "taking orders via AI" even mean? I have never once been in a fast food restaurant anywhere in the US that didn't have counter service, self-serve ordering kiosks, or both.

The McDonald's drive through.

They’re testing it at a whopping five stores.

Whoa...harsh words. I consider their fried chicken sando the best in the biz, yes even over Chik-fil-a

Yeah 9 times out of 10 I'd rather go to Popeyes. It is greasy but it's spiced well and I can't think of a single bland thing on their menu.

I'll say though that the customer experience at Chick-fil-a is top notch, and they really have drive through down to a science. Buying the food their has always been a pleasant experience.

They employ 3-4 people to man their drive through. No wonder it's such a great experience. Subconsciously, I think I pick CFA over alternatives, in part, to not have to deal with poor customer service.

late to a reply but poor choice of words on my part. I have a pretty knee jerk reaction to fast food, i tolerate chikfila just because the drive through operation and teamwork at a busy store is a sight to behold. I know chikfila is more expensive than average for fast food however.

Menu prices in the restaurant are ridiculous now.

The only way I can stomach buying fast food is through deals on their apps, which I find very anti-consumer and predatory.

It's also super annoying when you just want a quick and cheap meal but you need to spend an inordinate amount of time on their app to figure out how not to get taken advantage of by their pricing.

Yeah, fast food just isn't worth it anymore. Used to be super cheap comparatively to regular restaurants. Now I can go get a generous serving of pad thai from a local place here for less than a 10 pcs McNugget meal, and is usually ready just as fast as McDonals have gotten slower over the years.

I don't know how fast food is still in business. Around ~$36 before tip and tax to feed my family of 3 Thai food & the local Teriyaki place or maybe ~$45 for Chinese, and I'm in a HCoL area. Fast food ends up even more than that.

Agree on the apps, I hate them and they are not only predatory but buggy pieces of junk.

Popeyes is way tastier. Chick-fil-a is so bland.

> but neither have rents or prices for common goods.

All the price increases over the last few years disagree.

Prices in California seem out of control to me. Recent examples, BLT + Coffee = $36, Plate of broccoli, plate of peas, small pizza, tap water = $95. Plate of 2 tacos, burger, 2 drinks = $120. 2 sandwiches = $60

As for Japan. ATM food is often cheaper. If you want cheap though, there are plenty of much cheaper places in the world. For rent, there are cheap options I wish existed in the states. As many point out tho, size is small. I'm happy to pay less for a smaller place but the price per square meter is comparable, maybe not to SF but at least to LA.

Note that like any city, there is a vast range from downtown to less popular parts of the city. "Tokyo" even includes mountains and farmlands on it's far west side

Or you can eat much better food all around for much less in other establishments.

Businesses charge what they can get away with, and you're actively wasting money if you're referencing prices you actually paid for those meals recently.

You are correct I can find places that charge less. The point is, I used to go out to lunch and not have to worry about it. Now I go and get price shock.

It's interesting that some restaurants (and businesses in general) seemed to figured out within the last few years that a surprising (to me) number of people don't want to make any effort to comparison shop at all.

The only way to stop it is to stop giving them money.

Where in California is that?

username is socalgal so presumably SoCal, e.g. LA or San Diego, places known for being expensive

I can't say I've ever been to Popeye's, but $68 for 3 people seems unlikely based on their online prices: I picked a random one in Orlando, Florida and the "family meal" (which appears to be a very large amount of chicken) is $20.

The closest thing would be the "16Pc Classic Signature Chicken Family Meal," which is $55.69 at that location and is described as feeding between 6 and 8 people. So you'd need to tip a bit to get to $68 from there.

Did you include tax?

Also, that meal doesn’t include drinks. Poppies is significantly cheaper if you’re taking it home and supplementing with your own drinks.

Florida sales tax is around 8%. Drinks are $2-3.

Yes, but that meal is for 6-8 people. I don't think you can get to $68 for half as many people, even with drinks and tax.

I just tried it with the "8pc meal" and 3 fountain drinks for the same location, and it came to $39.36, including tax.

(If you want to try for yourself, I picked the Popeye's at 45 N Orange Blossom in Orlando, FL.)

Depends on the family.

I’ve seen 2 active teens at healthy body weights split that 8pc meal + a side of biscuits. Obviously if you’re talking about a 6 year old the numbers are different.

I can probably eat an 18” pizza alone, but you would rightly accuse me of misrepresentation for claiming that a “pizza for lunch for one” costs me $25+.

Not if that’s your regular order. For many families of 3 ordering 2 15” pizza, dessert, and drinks would be a regular lunch others may simply order 3 large slices.

That’s my point, family of 3 isn’t some standard size.

But the 8pc meal is only $36? What did the 3rd person order to push it to $68? Maybe the third person is a professional sumo wrestler. Every family is different!

Or maybe, just maybe, the idea that it costs the typical family of three $68 to eat at Popeye’s is just utter bullshit?

I am curious where and what they ordered.

That said, 8pc meal is a discount, you can get charged more for the same food if they aren’t all ordering the same thing. Also, don’t forget the extra side of biscuits I mentioned, teens can be shockingly ravenous beasts.

Similarly not all locations have the same pricing.

> I don't think you can get to $68 for half as many people, even with drinks and tax.

A 5pc chicken tenders, Mac and cheese, and a large drink is $25 before tax. If there are three people who get a similar meal (but not exact so they don't share the family meals) then the total is $75 before tax. Seems like the original price quote of $68 is certainly plausible for a group of three. I am sure its possible to feed three people for less like you claim, but that doesn't mean the $68 is impossible to reach.

Sure, it’s not impossible to reach. But I think you’ve demonstrated that you need to work to reach it. Particularly in a family context; I don’t eat at Popeye’s but even I know that the whole point of the family menu is that it’s meant to be economical for family meals.

Ordering a main, a side, and a drink isn't really "working to reach it". Your original post was insinuating that the OP or their friend lied about the cost and I was just demonstrating that it's quite plausible to reach it.

First, you ordered them a la carte, because using the combo price (as almost any actual buyer would do) would undermine your point.

And then you ordered an amount of calories greater than the recommended amount for an adult for the entire day. Sure, some people eat that, but is that remotely a useful metric to answer the question of what it costs the typical family of three to eat at Popeye’s? No.

> A 5pc chicken tenders, Mac and cheese, and a large drink is $25 before tax.

What region? Putting that same order together for a location near me is $16.23 after tax. Putting in the address above (45 N Orange Blossom in Orlando, FL.), the total was $17.35 after tax.

I think they're ordering it as a la carte vs a combo. The same items are $20.5 vs $13 pretax at the location closest to me in Florida.

18.99 for me but with 2 mac and cheese

My general assumption for any food I'm getting eating out in the US (across a range of regions) is $20/person for fast food/casual, and $30 if it's a basic restaurant. The food will be listed at $7-12 etc, but the receipt will show twice that due to fees, add-ons etc.

IMO what matters is what you pay; the numbers they post on the menus and other media aren't useful.

This is from their online checkout, so it is what you'd pay.

(It doesn't seem implausible to me that you'd pay $20/pp for food in most parts of the US; I'm responding purely to the hearsay claim that someone paid $68 for 3 people. I can't square that unless you actually bought twice as much food, and then some.)

Hey - I tried this just now, and was surprised; you're right; it was ~$12.

If they’re bigger folks or starving and someone doesn’t want bone-in chicken, I could see it. 3 large 4 piece combos is $55.50 in Miami, and I think there are other things in that range (eg a 5 pc tender meal if someone hates bone-in chicken so they can’t get a family meal).

The family meals are substantially cheaper than individual meals, if you can get everyone to agree on bone-in chicken and the same 2 sides.

A 20% tip would push that up to something like $66.

Why would you tip at Popeye's? It's fast food.

Who is out there paying a 20% tip at a Popeyes?!

The same people who claim they're spending $68 for a 3 person meal at Popeyes or other similar establishments and that there is no alternative (i.e. people who aren't very good with money and/or willing to put even the slightest amount of effort into comparison shopping).

This whole thread is like a Youtube epsiode of "Food Theory". https://www.youtube.com/@FoodTheory

Popeyes has always been ridiculously over-priced. I stopped going there over a decade ago when I realized they charge at least 2x any other fast food place that exists. They are the same as Five Guys, but at least Five Guys puts some effort into appearing like you are getting quality food. Both are way over-priced though.

Awesome news! Please let me know which chain I can go to for fried chicken at half the price that Popeye’s charges.

Japan gets an economic pass because they have such a strict monoculture.

In the same way you can "break" the laws of thermodynamics by getting every atom to move in the same direction at the same time, you can "break" the laws of economics by getting every person to make the same illogical choice at the same time.

Yes, the laws of thermodynamics and laws of economics are empirical laws. But, the laws of economics are derived from human values, which are inherently subjective.

You state the choices as “illogical”, but those choices can be logical based off a different set of values.

Similarly, if you have a different set of axioms, you can build a different reasonable system on it.

It's like Euclidean geometry and Non-Euclidian geometry. They are both valid systems based off of different axioms. Similarly, the different economic systems are valid based off of different set of societal values.

You can also compare it to the ideal gas law. It's a law, but is based of a hypothetical ideal gas. Similarly, the economic laws are based off of a hypothetical society. The ideal gas law does not hold in all conditions, and economic laws do not hold in all conditions.

The economic laws are meant as tools to predict behavior. But ironically, we end up modifying our behaviors to fit the laws, and we weaponize the usage of "economic laws" to control the behavior of others.

We have economists complain how "that economic system doesn't work". Yes, it doesn't work with the laws that define your economic system, but it works with a different set of laws. We have people say, "that doesn't make sense because of X law". It's the other way around. The "law" doesn't make sense, because I value something different.

is it similar?

to break the laws of thermodynamics locally, you need to have an open system where the tally is made up elsewhere

is japan following a unified culture of choices the result of other people doing extra outside of japan?

You can't really break the laws of thermodynamics because they are statistical laws, not absolute ones.

When you have 10 atoms bouncing around you can pretty easily "break" the laws because you don't have the statistical mass for aggregate behaviors (what we call the laws) to arise.

So it's not really a law that entropy must increase, it's more a 99.999...% (envision a lot of 9's there) chance it will, and the number of 9's is proportionate to the number of energy points in the system.

For the longest time their strategy was to:

1. Issue bonds at near zero or even negative yield.

2. Buy US bonds.

The country is still one of the largest foreign US debt holders at $1.191T, and interest from this debt pays for a significant fraction of the interest on their own debt.

I don't understand. Why would anyone buy their bonds when the US bonds yield more?

The issuer of debt is the seller of the bond.

That doesn't the answer the question of "who is buying these bonds instead of US Treasuries?"

Someone who is betting that the negative yield changes favourably. The bet is the same in positive yield regimes as well. This could happen due to a combination of deflation forecasts increasing and expectations of interest rates being lowered even further.

If you issue debt at non-positive yield, then there is no interest on your debt to offset with the yield from US bonds.

That's 10 cents for a single 35-calorie corn puff, to be clear, and it was a 25% price increase. 10 cents for one corn puff is not actually a good price.

> In Japan, there's a big issue when a snack raises its price 2 cents

That can't be true. So inflation just doesn't exist in Japan?

Historically, no. Prices were basically flat for a long time until covid.

They've also been making things smaller. Some would argue that it's a cultural thing, but being poor also means you have to start adopting austere cultural habits as a coping mechanism.

There's shrinkflation for sure. Take Torikizoku for example. One plate = 280yen from 1985 until 2017. Now it's risen to 337yen while also reducing in size by 30%.

Population is flat or declining so that's one of the main drivers of inflation. Japan could be a pioneer in steady-state economics.

Over the long run, population decline it is associated with disinflation or deflation. Deflationary forces often become strong because overall demand and economic growth slow.

For decades after the 1989 crash they were in deflation. Only in the last 3-4 years has any meaningful inflation returned. Some context here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades

For like past 30 years yes. The inflation during that time were covered by shrinkflation and value adds through feature adds. I think some argue it has to do with lack of popularity of credit cards and electronic payments, which nudge prices to gravitate towards nearest coin denominations which in turn suppress inflation. Which is probably true, considering if a bottle of soda went from a dollar and a dime to a dollar and two dimes, or the umaibo went from one dime to a dime and three cents totaling as four distinct coins, those will be very tangible to consumers.

Japan had decades of deflation after 1990. There’s a generation of people who got used to prices staying flat or going down.

Note that the snack price was increased "from 12 yen ($0.08) to 15 yen ($0.10)". That's a 25% increase.

> I recently heard that a trip to Popeye's for a family of 3 recently cost $68 in Florida.

Does it?

no, a combo meal (entree, side, drink) there is ~$10.

People forget that prices don't rise automatically. Businesses decide to raise prices. There isn't some magical force called inflation cuasing prices to go up. It's human decision-making all the way down.

Human decisions but usually with external factors: increasing costs, pressure to grow, etc.

If they could get away with raising price just because they feel like it they would do it earlier and more often.

Post COVID is a great example of this in action. They DID raise prices because they could. What keeps prices low is competition. But again, it's not automatic. Look at Arizona Ice Tea as an example. All price rises are business decisions with a person behind it.

Have you ever run a business?

Yes and all the price decisions are done by a person. Lowering prices, increasing prices, these are all decisions. Nothing is automatic.

Have you ever run a business? I have and still do. I make the pricing decisions, nobody makes them for me. Have to factor in a lot and repricing is always a hard choice in either direction. It's never automatic or some mystical force.

People forget that high prices aren't paid automatically. Consumers decide to purchase things at the higher prices, it's human decision-making all the way down.

$20 used to feed a whole family at KFC/Popeyes.

Wrong.

Popeye's for 3 costs ~$10 in India unless you're trying to make a full-course meal out of it.

Why should salaries catch up to heady levels of SV? There are very few places in US that can match SV in salary.

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